Session 18 and 19

In today's session, we discussed what we needed to complete. for instance, moving the film into final cut and finishing the soundtrack. Below is an image of our meeting sheet:

sessions 16 and 17

in today's session, I added the dialogue to our film that we had recorded the previous week. As a comical idea, we decided to include the old lady using a jedi-like mind trick on the police officer. For this, i instructed the old lady character to wave her hand in front of the police officer. We have now more or less finished the main footage and must now edit it in final cut. In the 2nd session, I have been concentrating on the photography unit as well.

Session 14 and 15

In this session, we started recording some dialogue for our characters, in order to cancel background audio of the classroom, we took an attachable microphone and the main laptop to the media studio in the front of the college and recorded the dialogue. Fortunately, one of our friends turned up and provided an extra voiceover for us.

Session 13

Today, we showed our rough movie to Ash in order to get feedback. She made a note that more close-up shots were needed in order to achieve the right effect. We then went back into moviestorm to film a close up on the old lady's face before she pulls out the gun.

Session 12

In this session, me and Ed managed to finish all character actions and shots by staying in the classroom for our free period. Despite the soundtrack and voiceovers not existing yet, we have more or less finished the rough edit of our film.

Session 12 and 13

In today's session's, we completed the early edit of our film. We have edited

Session 10 and 11

In this session we commenced filming of our moviestorm movie. I have moved my characters over to the main project and we have decided on a birds eye view of the set for our establishing shot. Below are a few screenshots of our finished set:

Session 8

In this session, Ash and Ed wrote the storyboard. I took no part in the writing of the storyboard as i was off ill from college. However, Below are some of the photos that Ed and Ash took of the storyboard whilst I was away:

Session 6 and 7

Unfortunately, I was off college due to a heavy cold and took no part in the drawing of the key frames. however, The next day I did write two of the key frames that had not been written in this session.

Session 4 and 5

Unfortunately, I was off college due to a heavy cold. Because of this, I took no part in the writing of the proposal and cannot recount what happened in these sessions.

Session 3

In this session, we were asked to create a moodboard that represented the theme and content of our film. My moodboard included some elements of moviestorm and real life images. Below is an image of my moodboard:

Session 2

After deciding on the idea for our film, we then separated into our individual roles, with Ed as set designer and soundtrack composer, Ashleigh as the screenplay writer and director, and myself as the character designer and cameraman.

Session 1

After watching the tutorial on how to use the animation software Moviestrom, we were asked to devise a film of our own. I would say that it was difficult to think of an idea at first. However, Steve helped us by giving us an example of an old lady shooting a group of policeman. We then took this as our idea and then thought of a plot.

Session 10

L2 GROUP 1: ROULETTE END SEQUENCE - STAGE 1 from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

In this session, we played our project to the rest of the class. Fortunately, our project met with overall praise. Some comments included:

• Effective dialogue
• Good idea of using the POV camera shot from the point of view of the gun spinning on the table.
• Good Black and White effect

However, our project also had some suggestions for improvement:

• Factual errors: the fact that Russian Roulette cannot be played with a pistol.
• Editing: the framing could have been placed more effectively.
• Audio: some of the audio gaps must be filled

After watching our project on a bigger screen, I would say that it is very good overall, but could be improved. For instance, If I were to do something differently, I probably would have taken the time to buy a revolver as opposed to using a pistol.

Session 9

In this session, we added the complete soundtrack to our project. We have roughly finished our project now and are waiting to upload it to vimeo. The only thing left to do now is to create opening and ending credits.

Session 8

In this session, we were mainly editing out the minor audio gaps and reviewing Jamie's soundtrack. We have decided that the soundtrack fits the mood of the film very well, ranging from emotive, deep music at the point where the characters commence the game of roulette to fast-paced, synthesized music at the point where the surviving character retaliates against the villain. We should be able to move the soundtrack over to the main computer from Jamie's laptop this afternoon.

Session 7

In this session, Jamie finished editing the soundtrack together with the footage in Garageband. We also improved the effect of our footage by adding a 'black and white' audio filter and turning the format of the project into widescreen. If the soundtrack and footage are edited together by the end of this lesson, our project will be finished.

Session 6

In this session, we added gunshot sounds to our project in two areas. 1) in the part of the footage that Jamie shoots himself and 2) At the end where the two characters face each other quickly and the screen fades to white. The gunshot is meant to leave the question open as to who dies ultimately. Also in this session, we transferred our footage into garageband ready for Jamie to add the soundtrack. Apart from the soundtrack and a few minor audio gaps, our project is more or less finished. Below are a few production photos of us editing that were taken today:

Session 5

In this session, we showed the rough edit of our film to Steve for review. He gave the project a good overall review, but told us that a few minor details needed adjusting, such as audio problems and the speed of some of the camera shots. We have started adjusting these problems and have also begun to add the gunshot sound effects. Hopefully, the whole project should be finished tomorrow.

Session 4

Today, we finished the rough edit of our project. All footage has been edited effectively despite a few obstacles such audio bugs and continuity errors. We have also uploaded pictures of the 'fake blood' bottle to flickr:

The next step that we hope to achieve soon is to add the soundtrack and sound effects. Unfortunately, our project contains several plot holes and factual errors that may not make sense. The most notable of which being that Russian Roulette cannot be played with a magazine fed pistols. If I could change something about the project overall, I would have organized the shots so that there were no continuity errors and taken the time to buy a cheap toy revolver.

Session 3

In this session, we commenced day 1 of editing our project with all footage completed. Unfortunately, we detected several audio bugs in our footage and have edited them out. We have also uploaded the new footage to final cut and are currently editing them into the old footage

Session 2

In this session I have started documenting the sessions more promptly. We went out to film the last of our footage this afternoon. Fortunately, we have finished all our footage and will soon upload it ready for editing. A notable difference in our filming today is that the bottle containing the fake blood had been more full, resulting in a more realistic blood effect.

Below are some production photos that we took whilst on set:

We also took pictures of the props that we used and of our set:

Session 1

Today we finished the draft edit of our action-thriller. When we had finished, we found some shots that were ineffective or didn't make sense. We have decided to re shoot some of the shots in a way that makes sense and adds to the tension. For instance, we have decided on a fairly Hitchcock-like shot of the camera being spun on the table so that it resembles the spinning of the gun. This shot should make for a surreal experience for the viewer. We have also decided to correct our breach of the 180 degree rule and film POV shots in which the characters break the fourth wall and talk to the camera representing the opposite character. Although we had planned to finish our project today, we still have several shots to film that we hope to finish tomorrow.

Action-Thriller questionnaire - results

As a task, I was asked to compose a questionnaire and ask people about which draft poster they preferred out of the three. I found that a majority of the class preferred Poster 2 as the best to promote the film, Whereas the poster that people found least effective was Poster 3. I would say that this does not differ very much from my expectations, as I was almost certain that Poster 3 wouldn't come across very effectively because I decided to draw a very simple poster due to a lack of ideas. I knew that Poster 2 would be the most effective of the posters because it sets the scene and intrigues the reader without giving away the entire story.

Poster 2 would probably be my choice for the final poster because it is intriguing and sets a clear visual summary of the plot but doesn't explain every detail, Thus intriguing the viewer. There has been some suggestion to improve my posters, such as adding more color and imagery, to make the title stand out and to make it seem clearer to the audience what the film is about. As for own opinion, I think that there are some design elements that don't work. For example, think that I should add more imagery to the posters in order to make the premise of the film clearer to the viewer, and make the text on the poster larger and bolder.

Saatchi Gallery

This is a contact sheet composed from pictures that I took during a college trip to the Saatchi Gallery. The Gallery is a museum for contemporary art which was opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985 in order to exhibit his art to the public. The gallery has a mixed range of abstract art. This includes art made of everyday items and very surreal sculptures.

In order to construct this contact sheet, I visited the Newspeak - British Art Part 2 exhibit. This art show inlude several strange exhibits. Such as a room that has been filled with oil that is almost invisible to the viewer where there is a waist-deep walkway that extends into the room which to the viewer, one side of it looks completely invisible. There also many incredible sculptures that are crafted from everyday items such as two giant dogs that are made out of cardboard. In addition, there are also many sculptures that are made from traditional materials for sculpture making such as latex and wire, but display very surreal imagery. A very notable example is "Saddleback", a sculpture where two strange animals resembling pigs are attached to each other front-to-rear.

For my contact sheet, I chose an abstract exhibit where all pieces are made out of everyday items but focus more emphasis on the abstract nature of the artwork rather than the extravagance of other contemporary pieces such as the giant cardboard dogs. These pieces included several luminous mushroom shaped objects that seemed to be made from balloons, hexagonal glasses that were arranged in a honeycomb-style pattern and a giant digital clock fashioned out of many small clocks in which the hands make up the time on the digital clock. I am not sure of the names of the artists behind this exhibit. I chose it because i am fascinated with how the exhibit shows the art can be made from the smallest contemporary items.